For almost two centuries, western travelers have been drawn to visit Granada. It is to the Alhambra Palace and its gardens that we flock, and upon reflection this might seem curious. For the Alhambra was the last stronghold in Spain of an Islamic culture we judge to be quite alien to our experience. But is it really? The Palace and gardens we visited in the morning have a distinctively modern feel to them. They are clean and bright, spacious and light, abstract and geometrical in design. For the early twenty-first century traveler, this is a place of "good vibes."
Today a newly-democratic Spain in a new Europe is beginning to look at its Moorish inheritance with new eyes. Here was a culture that tolerated those fellow Peoples of the Book, the Jews and the Christians; that, in the context of the time, gave women rights in their allotted domain; that pioneered the new sciences of geometry, mathematics and navigation to enable Spain to "discover" that new world in the west. We leave the Alhambra uplifted and inspired by the respect it gave to diversity.
